Christie: Republicans Shouldn’t Back Down on Gay Marriage

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said Republicans should not abandon their opposition to gay marriage, Time magazine reported.

The issue is “settled” in New Jersey, given Democratic control of the legislature and recent judicial rulings, Christie acknowledged. While opposition to single-sex marriage is a plank in the GOP platform, it should not be part of the national Republican campaign. “It should be done state by state,” he said.

“I don’t think that there’s going to be some major referee who’s going to say now it’s time to stop. Certainly I’m not going to, because these are opinions that I feel strongly about.”

Christie continued: “The country will resolve this over a period of time. But do I think it’s resolved now? No.”

It was necessary to conduct the debate with mutual respect, he added.

Christie said he had accepted last year that he could not block same-sex marriage in New Jersey. “When I know that I’ve been defeated you don’t bang your head against a wall and spend taxpayer money to do it. Absent a change in the legislature, I think at the moment it’s settled law in New Jersey,” Time reported.